Garden beds at Belmont Elementary to promote hands-on learning

BELMONT — For children attending Belmont Elementary School, the growing cycle of fruits, vegetables, and flowers will be part of their everyday curriculum, thanks to the recent addition of a school garden. 

In the winter, BES partnered with Prescott Farm Environmental Education Center to apply for a grant from the Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation. The school and the farm have worked together for 14 years in the Naturalist in the Classroom program. Last spring, Prescott Farm’s Andie Hession led first and third grade learners in planting a radishes and greens, which attracted school-wide interest to scale up their growing space to make it accessible to all 417 of the school’s pre-Kindergarten through fourth grade students.

Hession, school and community programs director at Prescott Farm, learned of the Lowe’s grant opportunity and brought it to the attention of the BES staff. She helped the school create a plan and write the grant. The $5,000 Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant funded the materials needed to build 10 raised bed gardens. BES is one of 586 schools awarded a Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant. 

BES first grade teacher Laurie Hodgman helped make the garden a reality. Hodgman said, “Our PTO’s annual Playground Party was combined with a Garden Bed Building Party. We were able to accomplish so much in just a few hours’ time because of the many helping hands.” 

BES Principal Ben Hill noted that staff of the Tilton Lowe’s was an asset to the project. “The support of community partners like Lowe's is so important for our school, enabling us to provide students with engaging learning opportunities that they would not otherwise receive. The willingness of our staff and community to put in extra time and effort on projects like this is also inspiring for me as the principal at Belmont Elementary School," he said. 

After the PTO party, Hession organized classes for two planting days. “For many students, this was their first experience planting outside,” she said.

In September, Kindergarten through fourth grade classes will be responsible for two, four-inch by eight-inch raised beds each. The gardens will be used as a teaching tool across the curriculum. In the meantime, some BES families have volunteered to care for the gardens over the summer. 

For more information about Lowe’s in the Community, visit Newsroom.Lowes.com or follow @LowesMedia on Twitter.